VEDANTA KHUSHI : THE LITTLE SPARROWS OF VEDANTA “KHUSHI”

Mail Today I 22nd May 2015

With 75 Vedanta Khushi child care centres across India, Vedanta’s company in Rajasthan, Hindustan Zinc and Vedanta foundation adopts 3055 Anganwadis to provide nutrition-health-education to underprivileged children

You visit any of the 75 across India spread Vedanta “Khushi” centres and you will find many stories surrounding the deprived children, who are given daily three meals, uniform, drinking water, books, utensils, toys and colourful posters to enjoy the education through play-way method.

Where Radha takes-out groundnuts from her ‘breakfast poha’, to eat it later, Billu likes playing with the ‘puppets’. Some children play with blocks and some like swings. Every morning their day starts with the prayer and follows with joyful classes. Ask them to sit for breakfast or for lunch without washing hands, and they would refuse. Hygiene has been imbedded in their course-curriculum.  

Care for the underprivileged children is very close to the heart of Anil Agarwal, Chairman of Vedanta Group. “No child in India should remain malnourished and be deprived of nutrition, health and primary education” is what he has envisaged. “Make India a child-malnourished free nation” is what he wants to see. In this process Vedanta initiated adoption of government run Anganwadis in the year 2008. The intervention was for a limited period, benefiting children in age-group of 0-6 years.

A country that has the highest number of malnourished children in the world and also accounts for largest child deaths, the private sector intervention, under public-private-partnership model, becomes significant.

Recently, Vedanta Foundation, Hindustan Zinc and Government of Rajasthan signed a 5 years MoU for the adoption of 3055 Anganwadis in Rajasthan. Rajasthan Government has a strong focus on child care and under this MoU, Vedanta Foundation and Hindustan Zinc would also develop 1000 Anganwadis into model Anganwadis. Besides regular facilities to all the 3055 Anganwadis, like books, toys, drinking water, mats, utensils, etc., the 1000 Anganwadis will see strengthening of infrastructure, child-friendly toilets, colourful walls, smokeless chulah to name a few.

200 Anganwadis will see facelift every year so as to complete the project in 5 years. The company has deputed coordinators, supervisors and senior-supervisors to ensure smooth functioning of the Vedanta “Khushi” centres and adopted Anganwadis.

As per the guidelines of World Health Organization, all the selected 3055 Anganwadis will have digital weighing scale to keep record of growth of children. Special emphasis has been given to health & hygiene and monitoring of weight of these children.

Pavan Kaushik, Head of Corporate Communication (Hindustan Zinc), said - “taking care of the underprovided children, their nutrition, health and primary education, is an agenda Company has been following for almost 7 years. We are also grateful to Government of Rajasthan for signing a MoU in this regard under the PPP Model. This joint effort is expected to benefit about 90,000 children every year. Besides providing the necessary colourful books, toys and other material in Anganwadis, our focus is also to provide requisite orientation and training to the Anganwadi workers in the adopted Anganwadis.”

On one hand when Vedanta has gone yet again for the adoption of Anganwadis, its campaign “Khushi” has been tirelessly spreading the message of child-care. The message on social media has large followers and runs a blog that has 1.5 million page views. Several debates on child-care issues have been undertaken by “Khushi” that had given some logical conclusion.  It was in a debate in Vedanta “Khushi” that had brought focus on adoption of government schools to improve infrastructure so that more and more rural children are inclined to go to school. As a result, Hindustan Zinc adopted 150 schools to improve their infrastructure and has also signed a MoU with Rajasthan Government to construct toilets in over 600 schools in Rajasthan.

VEDANTA KHUSHI: TIMES OF INDIA ARTICLE: HUNGRY FOR VOTES, BUT NO NETA TO FIX MALNUTRITION PROBLEM

Rema Nagarajan

15th April 2014

Politicians Call It A ‘Shame’, But Do Little To Cure Ills That Plague System

In January 2012, PM Manmohan Singh declared half of India’s children were malnourished and that was a national shame. Yet since then, not a single comprehensive national survey was conducted to determine the acuteness of the problem or measure progress, if any, of steps initiated to address malnutrition. Worse, the issue figures in a token manner in the election discourse of political parties and candidates.

The 2005-06 National Family Health Survey was the last one conducted and it found 48% of children suffered chronic malnourishment — of them, 20% acute malnourishment. The survey concluded that over half the women were anaemic and 36% underweight. The Global Hunger Index, released in October 2013, placed India among a group of countries with ‘alarming’ levels of hunger, figuring at the bottom of the heap, below China, Sri Lanka, Pakistan and several in sub-Saharan Africa.

Key interventions to boost nutrition levels include the targeted public distribution system (TPDS), Integrated Child Development Services (ICDS) and the school midday meal scheme (MDMS).

Despite increased food production and procurement for TDPS, food insecurity persists and is a chronic problem linked to poor delivery. The large number of ineligible or fake ration cards issued — a serious problem in some states, usually those that need TPDS the most — has caused huge leakages. The TPDS has glaring exclusion errors. About 20% of the estimated 90 crore eligible beneficiaries are denied subsidized grain as they have no ration card, while 20% of the not-poor do. TPDS remains restricted to wheat and rice that would alleviate hunger, but not address malnutrition. No recommendation to include pulses, oil and nutritious millets has been implemented. Even the food security Act — that UPA counts among its mega achievements — focuses on rice and wheat. Had the Act included higher procurement of millets, pulses, fruits and vegetables, it would have incentivised production of these, instead of just rice and wheat that are water-intensive crops.

ICDS was meant to counter malnutrition in children between 0 and 6 years and pregnant women. Government allocation, including states’ share, increased from over Rs 5,200 crore in 2007-08 to Rs 13,700 crore in 2013-14 and the number of anganwadi centres (AWCs) has increased from 10.1 lakh to 13.1 lakh in 2012-13.

Though almost 90% anganwadis are operational, the ICDS scheme reaches about 47% of eligible children, reported a CAG audit. Coverage in states varies from about 75% in Odisha to 18% in Bihar. Most AWCs lack infrastructure. In 2011-12, only 57% had drinking water on the premises, 47% had toilets and only 25% had a kitchen.

ICDS is meant to provide supplementary nutrition 300 days a year, or 25 days a month. But the number of days the programme worked ranged from 180-250, a CAG audit found. The audit revealed irregularities such as insufficient monitoring, suspected misappropriation of supplies, badly-trained anganwadi workers and shortfall in expenditure on supplementary nutrition, which meant lower per beneficiary expenditure. For a flagship programme that addresses a “national shame” the ICDS programme leaves much to be desired.

Allocation for the midday meal scheme is up from Rs 6,700 cr to over Rs 10,300 cr between 2007-08 and 2011-12. But many states aren’t meeting yearly targets of number of meals served. The scheme’s plagued by reports of children falling ill from eating poor quality or spoiled food. Many states are yet to achieve standards set to run it: constructing a kitchen shed, timely lifting of grains, proper food storage. Women employed as midday meal cooks remain underpaid.

While proportion of malnourished children has fallen since 2005-06, not only has the decline been slow, from 46% malnourished to about 33% by 2013, it’s been uneven with a few states and districts getting worse. But with poor tracking of the schemes’ implementation, or of the population’s nutritional status, no one seems sure if the situation has become any better or worse. And that’s the national shame.

HUNGER POLITICS | Aug 2012 | Modi quoted in interview blaming malnutrition in Gujarat on its “by and large vegetarian diet”. Because it’s a middle-class state, Gujarat is “more beauty conscious than health conscious”

Media reports laid bare the bluff: His contentions didn’t square with data whichever way it was spliced. Haryana, even more vegetarian than Gujarat, has better nutritional figures
NSSO data (2009-2010) showed poverty behind state’s poor nutritional indices .

SERVED DEATH | Scams plague the mid-day meal scheme. Last July 27 village children died in Bihar’s Chapra after having the meal. Nitish Kumar cried conspiracy – that they were poisoned. Fact was, there was no monitoring, and the principal ran a racket, serving kids substandard fare.

VEDANTA KHUSHI - TRANSFORMING LIVES

In Vedanta Anganwadi Centers, the Group supplements morning breakfast, with poha and groundnut, providing clean drinking water, new utensils, colorful books, toys and other necessary items, much to the needs of these children.
Improvement in attendance & retention of children and a significant progress in their health & hygiene is apparent in health check-ups & weight measurement of these children which is carried out periodically. The teaching through play-way method has been another significant factor responsible for increase in attendance.

Children are groomed for about 3 years in Vedanta Anganwadi Centres and they learn good habits, etiquette, discipline, importance of health & hygiene and basic education. 

VEDANTA KHUSHI, NDTV AND PRIYANKA CHOPRA BRIDGE SUPPORT TO EDUCATE GIRL CHILD IN INDIA

On 1s t December 2013, Vedanta, NDTV and campaign ambassador Priyanka Chopra came together for a live Telethon to raise awareness and support for girl child under the campaign 'OUR GIRLS OUR PRIDE – A Khushi Initiative'. The day was dedicated to honouring and encouraging India's girls to find their voice, become independent, follow their dreams and make a place for themselves in society. The day-long TELETHON was televised LIVE across the NDTV Network channels: NDTV 24x7, NDTV India, NDTV Profit and NDTV Goodtimes.

This campaign has received an overwhelming response from people across different walks of life from its inception. The Telethon successfully generated funds to support an annual education of over two thousand girls, with the Indian Film & TV fraternity, Corporate Houses, Athletes, NGO's and others contributing wholeheartedly to this cause. The funds raised will be given to the NGO Pratham, our implementation partner who is working in the field to provide quality education to the underprivileged children of India.

Hosted by Mr. Vikram Chandra and Campaign Ambassador Ms. Priyanka Chopra, the telethon featured some heart wrenching examples of the plight of Indian girls, many inspiring stories of women and girls who have beaten the odds, engaging and thought stimulating discussions with various experts and stakeholders, entertaining acts, live on-air donations and more.

Mr. Anil Agarwal – Chairman, Vedanta Group too joined and encouraged his own employees to come forward and adopt girl child and secure their future. Vedanta Company has been looking after 200,000 underprivileged girls with focus towards their health, education and nutrition.

A host of prominent personalities including Mr. Shah Rukh Khan, Mr. Aamir Khan, Mr. Karan Johar, Ms. Kajol, Ms. Aruna Jayanthi - CEO, Capgemini India, Ms. Kiran Mazumdar Shaw - Chairman & Managing Director of Biocon Limited, Ms. Vinita Bali - CEO, Britannia, Ms. Anu Aga - MP, Rajya Sabha & Former Chairperson, Thermax, Mr. Suhel Seth, Ms. Karisma Kapoor, Ms. Anushka Sharma, Mr. Shaan, Ms. Sania Mirza, Ms. Shahnaz Husain, Ms. Alia Bhat, Mr. Varun Dhawan, Mr. Ayushman Khurrana, Mr. Kunal Kohli and Ms. Vandana Luthra were also present during the event. 

VEDANTA KHUSHI - Over 2000 people of Delhi, Udaipur, Kolkata and Mumbai Painted

It was a day for over 2000 people including amateur artists and school children showed their solidarity towards girl child by painting 2000 new ideas to protect and honour girls in India. "Khushi : Our Girls Our Pride" campaign launched by Vedanta Group and NDTV organized an event at Udaipur, Delhi, Mumbai and Kolkatta simultaneously. 
Vedanta and NDTV joined hands to build a life of dignity for the girl child and the film star Priyanka Chopra has been the brand ambassador of the campaign.